Study on the Application of Passive Fire Protection on FPSO Topside Structures

Abstract

Fire is a continuous threat to FPSO topside modules as large amounts of oil and gas are passing through the modules. As a conventional measure to mitigate structural failure under fire, passive fire protection is widely used on main structural members. However, wider use of PFP can cause considerable cost for material purchase, installation, inspection and maintenance. The installation time can be a burden since the work should be done nearly the last stage after all equipment and pipes are installed. Thus, the minimal use of PFP can be beneficial to the reduction of construction cost and schedule delay. This paper presents a study of how the minimum passive fire protection for adequate safety can be achieved through a series of thermal elasto-plastic FE analysis. It aims at better understanding of the structural behavior with different PFP applications under plausible fire exposure.